My favourite time of day in San Lorenzo, a small Argentine village in the
foothills of the Andes, is 7am. As the sun rises over the mountains,
glinting through the trees, I sit on our veranda, feeding my two-year-old
son Finn his breakfast. We take our time, enjoy each other's company, and
look forward to another warm, sunny day.
One year ago, sunny days seemed a long way away. My wife Marina and I, both
27, were living in London, our lives turned upside down by the arrival of
Finn. I was supporting a family of three on a meagre media salary. Unable to
afford a babysitter, outings to the pub or the theatre were replaced by long
evenings at home. Our quality of life plummeted. We were no longer sure that
we wanted to live in London and bring up our child there and we dreamt of
escaping to a less hectic life.
The thought of moving was daunting - we had found working a baby into our
familiar North London lifestyle difficult enough. We also worried that
dragging him across the world might be detrimental to his development and
stability. But having had a year of failing to adapt to our new reality, our
relationship was being strained to its limits. So we decided to move and
picked Argentina - we could stay indefinitely by renewing our tourist visa
every three months, and with six pesos to the pound our money would go a
long way.
There were obvious problems, though. We spoke almost no Spanish, I had no job
there and our savings came to just over £5,000. Fortunately, we could rent
out our two-bedroom London house. Even after bills, this left us enough to
survive on - if we lived frugally - until I found work.
Our friends and colleagues thought that it was a ludicrous decision to leave a
career and familiar environment for potential unemployment in a poor
country. The hardest part was telling our families; my parents-in-law were
upset at the thought of missing their grandson's childhood and I knew that I
would see even less of my family in Ireland. But we hardened our hearts,
bought three open tickets and a month later were sitting on a British
Airways flight to Buenos Aires, “the Paris of the South”.
We landed on a sticky midsummer's day last January and found ourselves amid a
vast sprawl of high rises, intersected by some of the world's widest and
busiest avenues. An Argentinian friend in London had found us a cheap
apartment to rent - a cobbled-together collection of rooms perched above a
pizzeria. For the price of a glass of wine back home, we found a babysitter
for Finn in the afternoons while we explored the city looking for Spanish
courses and potential work.
The Argentinians love children to the point of spoiling them and their liberal
approach meant that Finn's routine was going the way of the dodo. The social
life was not conducive to having supper at 6pm and being in bed by 8pm. A
friend would ask the three of us to supper and casually drop by at midnight
to pick us up. Argentine children seemed to go to bed whenever they fell
over. We came to realise that this lack of strategy means less stress for
parents and children.
Our deficit in child-related stress, however, was quickly replaced by our
failed efforts to achieve anything in midsummer Buenos Aires. Most of the
city's inhabitants were on holiday and the remaining skeleton workforce
seemed incapable of answering any of our inquiries about work. After three
weeks we realised that BA was just like London but with more traffic, fewer
parks and temperatures that sometimes hit 40C. We wanted to find somewhere
quiet and safe, with room for Finn to run about. We set our sights on vast
rural Argentina - what city folk refer to with an air of incomprehension as
“the interior”.
We bought a second-hand car and nervously scanned a map of Argentina's 3
million sq km for likely locations. We opted for an open-ended search. Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid found a remote hideaway in this vast land;
surely a non-fugitive couple with a baby could do the same?
After a hairy departure, weaving around BA's kamikaze bus drivers, we left the
city behind and a straight country road stretched to the horizon before us.
I was gripped with fear at the thought of taking my family into the unknown,
but felt an immense sense of freedom. Though we were technically on the road
to nowhere, it felt that after almost two years of failing to conform to
life in the city, we had chosen the right road.
In four weeks we criss-crossed the country. We picnicked on the flat grassy
Pampas and snacked in the teahouse of a Welsh settlement deep in the deserts
of Patagonia. Finn's routine disintegrated even further and for a time it
seemed that he had gone feral in the back of the car, dirty nappies and
empanadas strewn about him. He slept for hours on end, catching mere
glimpses of the sparkling blue lakes and snow-capped peaks of the Andes as
we raced by.
After two weeks we had still not found anywhere that matched our idea of a
country idyll. Though we had the income from our rented house, being on the
road and sleeping in B&Bs was eating into our savings and we hadn't
earned a penny since arriving in the country.
Salta, a province in the north-west, sounded promising so we decided to make
one last push. Over the following week we crossed four provinces, before
finally rolling into Salta city one summer evening as the sunset lit up the
church spires against the surrounding mountains. It was obvious how the city
had earned its epithet as Salta la Linda: Salta the beautiful.
We had covered 8,000 kilometres in less than a month and were exhausted. I had
read about the pretty village of San Lorenzo ten minutes out of the city so
we continued on and checked into a hotel. Within days the friendly owner had
found us a beautiful house to rent with a huge garden and pool, all for the
price of a double bedroom in London.
I found work teaching English in the city and began to pick up some freelance
writing commissions. Appalled at Salta's economic inequality, Marina began
working on a project for children in the poor barrios as well as helping to
set up a restaurant in an old Italian family home. But it still took time to
settle in.
Salta has a reputation as the most “traditional” of Argentina's provinces. We
soon discovered that the area we lived in was home to the high society. As
Europeans, we were objects of curiosity rather than potential friends. I
made a friend through the English school where I taught and he arranged an
asado (barbecue) to introduce us to some of his family. We were ignored by
the Tommy Hilfiger-clad younger group until Marina raised the subject of
“machismo”. We were then told in no uncertain terms that men (meaning me)
should have no part in changing nappies and must always have the last word
in decision-making. With Marina fuming, they returned to cooking their
steak.
The poorer Andean (dark-skinned) locals were friendlier but I think that the
fairly rigid class system had made them shy. It took months for us to make
good friends, still more to understand the cultural barrier when it came to
looking after Finn.
One incident stands out: we had to cross the Bolivian border to renew our
passports and, as it was only a six-hour drive, we decided to travel there
and back in one day. Despite our insistence not to leave the property while
we were away, the 19-year-old girl we entrusted with Finn's care took him
back to her house - on her boyfriend's moped. We were halfway to Bolivia
desperately calling the house and getting no answer. Eventually we contacted
a friend who tracked them down and took Finn home, but we felt guilty as
hell and promised never to leave him behind again.
Slowly, though, we have slipped into a routine. I travel to the city to teach
and write at home in the evenings. I practise my Spanish on anyone I can
find, including the inmates at the prison radio station where I have
volunteered.
Marina has found the language difficult but has discovered a more effective
way of communicating. The variety of fresh local fruit and vegetables (not
to mention the best meat on Earth) has taken her already formidable cooking
skills to a new level. Her full Irish breakfasts, kedgeree and croque
monsieur have become legendary. Watching Finn figuring out how to pick up
(or sometimes throttle) one of the garden chickens reminds us what we've
gained.
We do miss our family and friends at home but having Skype means that we can
sit in the garden and introduce my family to Carlos, my 65-year-old
neighbour, who tells them all about the plants they can see in the garden.
It makes the distance seem much shorter.
As for Marina and I, our relationship has improved too. Although the
transition from a steady job to a life of uncertainty has sometimes been
stressful, our relationship has grown stronger in an environment in which
both of us feel happier.
Sitting on the veranda with Finn as the morning sun fills the air with the
scent of jasmine, British rain and the economic storm in the UK seem very
distant. Our only reminders are calls from friends and family who now insist
that we stay here and ride out the recession. They don't know that recently
I have been taking their advice literally and this afternoon there may well
be a couple and a baby on horseback, galloping over the hills under a warm
Argentine sun.
